Mary is a calculating thing - I have a mental image of her running after Edmund saying "Judge? Politician? Starbucks barista?" as she tries to get him to change professions. But although she came prepared to set her cap at Tom she still falls for Edmund even when she could take a second shot at (and probably gain) Tom. Tom, who equally calculatingly looked at Mr. Grant and estimated how long it would take him to have a heart attack.
The thing that horrifies Edmund is not that Mary is concerned about her brother and his sister; it's that she thinks Fanny should have married Henry
I'm not sure that's the center of his shock, though. Edmund tells Fanny that he only went to see her as "the last, last interview of friendship" - before she even opened her mouth, he had already decided to throw her over and had determined what and how she should feel. Whereas she, who had entered the book because she was tired of living with an uncle who had chosen to "bring his mistress under his own roof" (obviously without benefit of marriage) already had a working knowledge of how this sort of social scandal would play out. Well before he relates Mary's lines about marrying Fanny, Edmund has plenty to say about Mary assuming he'd talk to her at all much less "No harsher name than folly given! So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvas it! No reluctance, no horror, no feminine - shall I say? No modest loathings."
It's true that Edmund has been holding a false image of what Mary's character is the entire book. I just have no sympathy for his shock and horror now, when he knew how she came to the parsonage and introduced herself to the Mansfield crew at dinner with a sodomy pun. Edmund hasn't been paying attention, but even if he'd done so, he still planned on leaving her to fend for herself matrimonially for the sake of principle after practically coming to the point of breach of promise.
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The thing that horrifies Edmund is not that Mary is concerned about her brother and his sister; it's that she thinks Fanny should have married Henry
I'm not sure that's the center of his shock, though. Edmund tells Fanny that he only went to see her as "the last, last interview of friendship" - before she even opened her mouth, he had already decided to throw her over and had determined what and how she should feel. Whereas she, who had entered the book because she was tired of living with an uncle who had chosen to "bring his mistress under his own roof" (obviously without benefit of marriage) already had a working knowledge of how this sort of social scandal would play out. Well before he relates Mary's lines about marrying Fanny, Edmund has plenty to say about Mary assuming he'd talk to her at all much less "No harsher name than folly given! So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvas it! No reluctance, no horror, no feminine - shall I say? No modest loathings."
It's true that Edmund has been holding a false image of what Mary's character is the entire book. I just have no sympathy for his shock and horror now, when he knew how she came to the parsonage and introduced herself to the Mansfield crew at dinner with a sodomy pun. Edmund hasn't been paying attention, but even if he'd done so, he still planned on leaving her to fend for herself matrimonially for the sake of principle after practically coming to the point of breach of promise.